


you belong with me

by alljustrunaways



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2019-08-23 18:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 20,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alljustrunaways/pseuds/alljustrunaways
Summary: A collection of Jake and Amy one-shots posted ontumblr.





	1. home is just another word for you

**Author's Note:**

> so i decided to finally make a collection of one shots bc the number of random ideas that have popped into my head while studying for my midterms and listening to music is crazy. anywayssss here's the first chapter!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While moving into Amy's apartment, Jake stumbles upon the letter she wrote him while he was in Florida.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from 'you're my home' by billy joel

“Alright, this is the last box!” Jake shouts loud enough to be heard across the apartment, ripping the tape off the large cardboard box full of miscellaneous knick-knacks and items that he refused to part with. He’s positive Amy only let him keep them because she feels a little bit bad he had to give up his apartment (even though hers was the obvious choice) but the image of a Die Hard poster among her fancy china cabinets and antique furniture is just too good. Besides, they’re both excited to make it _their_ apartment versus simply her apartment that he’s living in.

 

“Awesome, babe!” He hears Amy’s voice from the kitchen, where she’s unpacking his pretty limited supply of cutlery and appliances.

 

With the realization that he’s one box away from fully cohabiting with his favourite person in the world, Jake smiles to himself as he begins to pull random objects out of the box a little faster than he did the last few.

 

“Okay, magic eight ball, where should you go?” he mumbles to himself, glancing around the room at the nice, soft aesthetic Amy’s created with her choice of decor. “Yeah, maybe in a drawer for now.”

 

He strolls over to her desk, opening the drawer filled with documents and various writing utensils and stationery. He plops the ball in next to the stapler, his eyes barely glancing over some of the highly-organized papers and catching an envelope, mostly obscured by an insurance form, with the FBI seal in the corner.

 

His interest immediately piqued, he glances behind him to make sure Amy’s still in the other room and picks up the envelope, which isn’t sealed. Inside are two folded sheets of paper, the second falling to the desk as he reads the first one.

 

_Detective Amy Santiago,_

 

_I would like to inform you that Detective Jacob Peralta is still in Witness Protection and will continue to be for an indefinite amount of time. I am unable to update you on the case, but I assure you the Bureau is doing everything we can to find Jimmy Figgis. Since it has been six months, I have decided to allow you to write a one-page letter to Jacob, which I will read to him and subsequently incinerate. Please enclose your letter in this same envelope and deliver it to the address you were given before Jacob’s departure, it will be passed on to me._

 

_Marshal Haas_

 

Taking in a sharp breath, he realizes what the other letter must be. Given the fact that the Nine-Nine came down to Florida to help catch Figgis only a few days after the six-month mark, she must’ve never had the chance to deliver it. His heart begins to beat faster as he reads the first line - his name, in her perfect, neat handwriting.

 

_Dear Jake,_

 

_We both know brevity isn’t my strong suit, and since it’s impossible to fit six months into one page, I’m going to try to give you the highlights._

 

_Charles and Genevieve adopted a four-year old, his name is Nikolaj and Charles never stops talking about him but he’s actually pretty cute. Rosa’s good, she says to tell you she nodded slightly (I assume you know what that means). Gina is...Gina. Terry and Sharon and the kids are doing well. We got a new captain today, he’s a complete idiot but at least it’s only until Holt comes back. Everyone misses you guys so much._

 

_I’m doing okay. As okay as I can be without you, I guess. It’s really hard sometimes. It’s always hard, but some days are worse than others. I haven’t been doing much lately other than staring at the phone waiting for the call that you’re coming home. I know you’re safe there, but please don’t do anything reckless that could jeopardize that no matter how long you’re gone. I want you home so badly, but if he finds you I’m never gonna get that call. I need to get that call._

 

_I love you so much. I love you more every single day. I worry about you constantly - please remember to drink water and eat vegetables and get some exercise. I know this must be so hard and scary for you, but hopefully it won’t be too much longer. I can’t wait for you to come back to me._

 

_Love,_

_Amy_

 

What breaks him, making him collapse into the chair beside him and sending tears down his cheeks, is not the heart-wrenching words she wrote for him months ago - it’s the faint stains on the page in the shape of teardrops.

 

While he was in Florida, slowly deteriorating and feeling his former self slip away along with his hope of returning home, she was sitting at this very desk crying over his absence. Missing him, worrying about him, _loving him more every single day._

 

“You need some help finishing with the-“

 

He turns slightly to face the figure standing in the doorway. In pyjama shorts, a loose black tank top, and with her hair pulled back in a ponytail that’s now messy from hours of moving boxes, she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

 

“Jake, what’s wrong?” She scurries over to him, frowning. “Why are you crying?”

 

He doesn’t realize his eyes are puffy and his cheeks are wet with tears until she’s standing right next to him, her hand cupping his face. He lifts the letter in his hand for her to see, her eyes widening as he finally looks up at her.

 

“Oh...”

 

“I never knew about this,” he chokes out, reaching out for her from where he still sits in the chair and resting his hand on her waist.

 

“I know,” she says, her hand moving from his face to rest on his shoulder. “We went to Florida the next day. I never delivered it.”

 

He nods, wiping his tears away with the sleeve of his hoodie. “Yeah, I just meant I- I didn’t know about this at all. About how hard it was for you.”

 

Her face, initially etched with concern, now flashes with a look of pain and loneliness at the memory of their separation. Even now, when they’re approaching the mark of him being back for as long as he was gone, he still sees this look sometimes when someone mentions Florida or WitSec in general.

 

“Of course it was, Jake,” she says quietly. “After I got used to being with you, _not_ being with you wasn’t really an option anymore.”

 

He knows the feeling. There are too many memories clogging his brain that he wishes would fade of eating soggy burritos in the hot tub or staring at the photo of Amy in the storage unit because it was all he had. 

 

“C’mere.”

 

Needing to be close to her, he tugs on her waist and turns her around so she gently falls into his lap. Her arms wind around his neck while her head finds his shoulder. He kisses her forehead for the version of himself known as Larry Sherbet, who wasn’t sure at times if he would ever be able to do that again. Larry would’ve given anything in the world to hold her like this during the hot, sleepless Florida nights.

 

“Thanks for coming home to me,” she murmurs, her lips pecking his collarbone.

 

“Thanks for waiting for me to come home,” he responds, his arms around her body clutching her a little tighter. “And thanks for being super cheesy in that letter, because I’m totally gonna bring it up all the time now.”

 

She slaps his arm half-heartedly, still relaxed against him. “Hey, you would’ve been cheesy too if you were allowed to write one.”

 

“Definitely, but we will never have proof of it,” he says, hand stroking her leg. “Unless you ask Captain Holt how many times I whined about missing you after I had downed a bottle of whiskey and he’d searched my living room for bugs and cameras _again_.”

 

He says it like a joke, but she only hugs him closer and buries her face in his neck. He supposes the thought of him drunkenly talking about how much he misses his girlfriend does seem pretty sad. It _was_ pretty sad.

 

“I love you, roomie,” he murmurs.

 

“I love you too.” She pulls away to face him properly, leaning in for a quick kiss. “Although, we’re not officially living together until you finish unpacking that box.”

 

“Okay, okay, okay...or, hear me out, what if we unpack it _later_ and have sex _now_? _”_

 

He looks up at her with big puppy dog eyes, employing his foolproof method of stroking her inner thigh gently with his thumb.

 

“Jake...I really want to get this done,” she says, but he can already hear the willpower fading in her voice.

 

“Does it really matter if we have sex with or without the Die Hard poster hung up?”

 

She bites her lip. “Well, I guess n-“

 

Taking that as all the approval he needs, he scoops her up and walks her over to the bed so conveniently close to them. The bed that is now _their_ bed, in their room, in their home. He admitted to himself a long time ago, however, that home was wherever she was - specifically, in the moment that she kissed him in the back of an ambulance in Coral Palms and Brooklyn suddenly became just a place on a map.


	2. if the stars don't align, if it doesn't stop time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy doesn't realize what was missing in her relationship with Teddy...until Jake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's some fluff bc my last post was so angsty. from tumblr request: "Can i request a fic with parallels between Amy's relationship with Teddy and with Jake and how much happier Jake makes her? Thank you, love your writing!"   
> title from not like the movies - katy perry but it's also heavily inspired by begin again - taylor swift which happened to come on while i was writing this and the chorus is so them it hurts

Two months into Jake’s time undercover, Amy arrests a perp named Joe Uterus.

 

The first time she hears Rosa say his name, before they’ve caught him killing a stray dog - he’s a complete psychopath - she looks up to meet the eyes of the person that should be sitting across the desk from her, laughing and making immature jokes. But he’s not there, and the room is silent.

 

That evening, she goes to dinner with Teddy. The restaurant is nice, the food is good, the company is…well, it’s Teddy. He’s her boyfriend. Her responsible, mature, intelligent boyfriend who she really, truly likes most of the time.

 

Surely it doesn’t make her that bad of a person that she’s planning in her head a way to get out of going back to his place after dinner so she can go home and watch Law and Order. Nobody wants to be with their significant other _all_ the time (even if she’s only slept over there once this month and she left at six the next morning).

 

“Amy? Did you hear what I was saying?”

 

Amy snaps out of her thoughts, nodding her head with a fake smile. “Yeah, pilsners,” she guesses, hoping it’s correct. She’s like, ninety-nine percent sure it is.

 

Teddy nods, taking a sip of the boring drink that her brothers joked was the personification of Teddy himself if he were a type of alcohol (Tony confidently declared that he would be tequila) after he came to her parents’ place for dinner one time because he saw the text on her phone from her mother inviting him and there was no way she could get out of it.

 

“So, um, I arrested a perp named Joe Uterus today,” Amy says with a sip of her wine, a small grin on her face at the ridiculous name.

 

“What did you get him for?” Teddy asks, expression still blank.

 

Amy shakes her head, laughing. “His name was Joe _Uterus_. It doesn’t matter what he did, that name is hilarious.”

 

Teddy shrugs. “Nothing funny about crime. Anyways, as I was saying, that pilsner convention in Jersey next month might be a fun weekend getaway, we can…”

 

Amy slips back into her own thoughts as Teddy rambles on for what will likely be the rest of their meal. She thinks about what she needs to buy at the grocery store and what she should wear to work tomorrow and, in the back of her mind, of messy brown hair and leather jackets and _I kinda wish something could happen between us…romantic-styles,_ potentially the last words he will ever say to her.

 

She really hopes they’re not.

 

-

 

Two months into Jake and Amy’s relationship, they go to a restaurant that Amy faintly recognizes but can’t quite remember why or when she came here.

 

Jake pulls out the chair for her to sit down, his hand barely skimming the side of her tight black dress as she sits down, making her body tingle with the best kind of nervous anticipation. She still, without fail, always feels like a sixteen year-old girl before every time she gets to see him. She’s grateful for the comfortable chair supporting her; she’s been weak in the knees since he helped her out of the car and placed a hand on her lower back.

 

“Sorry I’ve been talking about myself all night,” Amy apologizes, realizing he spent the entire car ride here listening to her rant about this annoying beat cop that always gives his unsanctioned advice on how she should solve her cases.

 

“It’s okay,” Jake says, sliding into the chair across from her. “I like listening to you rant, it’s cute when your face gets all red.”

 

She can’t help the blush creeping onto her cheeks, tucking her hair behind both of her ears absent-mindedly. Jake always smiles when she does that, and she can’t figure out why for the life of her.

 

“Oh, I forgot to tell you something! You’re gonna love this,” she says excitedly. “One of my brothers picked Die Hard at our family movie night last week and they’re all, like, obsessed with it now. We’re gonna be watching Bruce Willis movies every time until it’s my turn again, I swear.”

 

Jake laughs, throwing his head back. “That’s so awesome. If I ever meet them, remind me to give them my recommendations. Santiago movie night will never be the same.”

 

“When Anthony comes to Brooklyn next week, I definitely will,” Amy says, noting that his smile grows a little bit at her casual shift from _if_ to _when._ “Seriously though, I know you love them, but does _every_ Bruce Willis movie have to be an action movie? There’s only so much I can take.”

 

“Hey! It’s what he does, he’s basically the king of action movies.”

 

“Well,” Amy says with a small smirk, a joke forming in her brain. “I guess it goes to show what they say about old habits…”

 

As her joke lands on him, Jake’s eyes light up and he looks at her like she hung the moon. She’s a little shocked when he leans across the table and takes her lips in his. The kiss is chaste, but still manages to make her feel dizzy the second he pulls away from her.

 

“Babe, you just - a Die Hard reference _and_ a pun, you’re…” he gives a small shake of his head, his face softening as he meets her gaze. “You’re amazing.”

 

She grabs his hand over the table, the contact enough to sustain her while they continue to talk and laugh and eat and drink things other than pilsners. Eventually, it’s not enough and she’s dragging him into a cab headed for his apartment. Jake tips the driver generously for not making any comments about them making out for the entire ten-minute drive.

 

She doesn’t wish even once that night that she were back at home watching Law and Order. She doesn’t leave early the next morning before he wakes up - she wakes after he does, with her head still on his chest as he presses kisses to her hair.

 

There’s no point in compromising when it comes to love, Amy realizes. With Jake Peralta, she never has to.


	3. nothing can take you away from me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake and Amy's first night together after the squad's rescue mission in Florida.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from tumblr prompt: Omg I thought of another prompt! (Sorry!) It’s not really a prompt but something I want to read happen: Jake kissing Amy’s forehead and then they do the forehead touch (maybe she did the Double Tuck like right before????) Basically I’m a sucker for the forehead touch and fluff and your fluff is great! I love it and you!! Thank you!!!
> 
> HELLO HERE IS SOME FLUFF but it's still a little sad bc i suck at not making things a little sad

If the worst thing about Florida is being apart from Amy, the second worst is definitely the pizza.

 

The squad insists on going out for a quick meal to catch up with Jake and Holt, and the only restaurant nearby happens to be the crappiest pizza place in America (as Jake announces a bit too loudly while in the restaurant, still a little high on pain meds).

 

“I would kill for a slice of Sal’s right now,” Jake sighs, dropping his half-eaten slice of meat lover’s on the plate.

 

Amy’s hand, which has been located on his leg since they sat down, squeezes his thigh gently. “Tomorrow, babe.”

 

They decided to stay the night in a hotel and fly back tomorrow rather than drive back with the squad, given that Jake just got shot in the leg and a full day crammed in Terry’s van is _literally_ not what the doctor ordered.

 

Despite the awful pizza and bullet wound in his leg, he’s feeling better than he has in months. He can’t help but smile and lean over to kiss his girlfriend.

 

“Ugh, get a room,” Gina says, picking up Jake’s half-eaten pizza and rolling her eyes as he looks at her. “What? My ambies are wearing off and I haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours.”

 

“Speaking of a room...” Amy trails off, her voice quiet enough that only Jake will hear her. As much as he missed his friends, he can sense that she’s anxious to finally be alone together. As for him, the thought of this night is the only thing that got him through the past six months.

 

“Yeah, we should get going,” he agrees, smiling gratefully as Amy grabs his crutches and passes them to him before he slides out of the booth.

 

The squad gets up to hug him goodbye, and he can’t help but feel overcome with joy that he’s finally reunited with his family. He hugs Holt last, patting him on the back.

 

“So, should we make plans to hang out this week? Maybe some hot tub action? I just really feel like we could use some quality time together, sir.”

 

Holt pulls away from the hug. “I assume you are joking, Peralta. Nevertheless, good job today. I am proud of you.”

 

He smiles at his captain and hobbles away before he gets too emotional with Amy close behind, grabbing the door for him. She calls a cab quickly and helps him get in the backseat, sliding in next to him. Her head rests on his shoulder the moment the car pulls out of the parking lot, closing her eyes for a few minutes while they drive. She doesn’t say it, but he can tell she hasn’t slept much lately, certainly not at all since she learned Figgis was aware of his location.

 

Jake’s expecting your average crappy Floridian motel, so he’s surprised when they pull up to a four-star Marriott, turning to look inquisitively at Amy.

 

“I thought we deserved something kinda nice,” she says, squeezing his hand. _He doesn’t deserve her._

 

He’s so excited to take a shower and spend the night in a hotel room with his girlfriend that it doesn’t dawn on him until the time comes that showering is going to be a difficult task. He’s not surprised that Amy already has a game plan - she actually listened to the doctor while he appreciated the drugs he was on and the fact that he was finally holding her hand again.

 

“Get undressed and then we have to plastic-wrap your leg so the bandages don’t get wet when we shower,” she says in her typical authoritative tone with a touch of softness.

 

“When _we_ shower, huh?” Jake raises his eyebrows at her, taking off his shirt.

 

She’s already in the bathroom and obstructed from his view, but he strongly suspects she’s rolling her eyes.

 

“Jake, you can’t stand up. How else would you be able to shower?”

 

He knows it’s a fair point, and he’s extremely grateful for the first positive repercussion of his injury (aside from Amy saving him from a shot to the head and catching a wanted murderer).

 

The shower, unfortunately, is actually very unsexy and requires a lot of effort from both of them. Amy struggles to keep him upright while also trying to wash both her own and his hair (which Charles can _never_ find out about, he swears to himself) and he grabs one of the shelves for dear life to avoid knocking them both over.

 

What’s far more relaxing is the aftermath of the shower, laying in between silky sheets in fluffy white bathrobes.

 

“I missed you so much,” she murmurs into his shoulder.

 

“Me too, Ames,” he says sincerely, kissing her hair. “Now, I have something important to ask you...how do you feel about the tips?”

 

He points to the awful blonde highlights which he’s starting to become embarrassingly fond of. She runs her hand through his hair, narrowing her eyes.

 

“If it weren’t for the fact that I haven’t seen you in months and I missed you so much, I would hate them, but…”

 

“Noice, um, what did the doctor say about sex again?” He fears he already knows her response.

 

“At least a week, Jake. It’s been less than five hours.”

 

“Five hours, five days...potato, potato.”

 

“ _Jake_ ,” she says warningly. “One week. And then we will have the most mind-blowing, amazing, non-strenuous sex of your life, okay?”

 

His face lights up as he nods eagerly. That day one week from now (he thinks he can negotiate her down to five or six days) cannot possibly come fast enough, but for now, just being here with her is more than enough. He finally takes the time to take her in fully - her dark hair, still damp from the shower; her face, free of makeup and completely flawless; her eyes, shining brightly as she looks at him with abundant love and admiration, something he will never get used to.

 

Sitting up to reach her, he strokes her cheek with the back of his hand, shaking his head in disbelief.

 

“You’re so beautiful.”

 

Amy’s cheeks begin to redden, and she pulls her hands away from him to tuck her hair behind both of her ears. A part of him, he thinks, subconsciously compliments her sometimes just to see this reaction. He’s never told her about her famous “double-tuck” which Rosa enlightened him on nearly two years ago, mostly because he doesn’t want her to ever stop doing it.

 

He shifts closer to her and presses a long kiss against her forehead, his hand tangling in her hair. The sound of her sighing softly makes his heart ache even more for the six months that they’ve lost. Even if he’s fortunate enough to get a lifetime with her, he will _always_ mourn those six months, they will always be six months that he didn’t get to make her feel like this.

 

Her eyes are closed when he pulls away, her arms reaching for him to keep him from straying any farther. He rests his forehead against hers and wraps his arm around her to bring her entire body closer to his.

 

“It was so hard without you,” she whispers. “It felt like…nothing mattered anymore.”

 

Jake thinks back to the days (one hundred and eighty-four, to be exact) he spent going through the motions with no motivation to do anything but eat burritos in the hot tub and try desperately to do anything he could to find Figgis. He thinks back to the picture on the wall that was all he had of Amy for _one hundred and eighty-four days_.

 

“I know the feeling.”

 

He slowly pulls back to look her in the eyes, the pain in his chest flaring when he realizes hers are full of tears that she quickly tries to wipe away.

 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says softly, his hand gently wrapping around her wrist and pulling it away from her face. “You can let it out, Ames.”

 

She nods, the tears flowing freely as she falls into his arms and presses her head into his chest. He wraps his arms around her as tightly as he can while she sobs, all the emotions of the past few hours catching up with her.

 

“I just got you back and I saw Figgis with the gun and I-I was so scared I was gonna lose you-“

 

“Shh, Ames, I know,” he murmurs close to her ear. “I was scared too. But we’re okay. I love you.”

 

“I love you so much” she says, voice muffled by his robe.

 

He holds her for a few more minutes, until her sobs dwindle and her breathing steadies, and tries desperately not to think about how many times she may have broken down like this without him there to comfort her.

 

“We should get some sleep,” she says after they’ve reclined back into the soft pillows, still holding each other tightly. “We have to leave by nine to catch the flight home.”

 

He smiles at the idea of Brooklyn, of busy streets and good coffee and weather below eighty degrees and his tiny little apartment. Still, the entire city of New York pales in comparison to the woman in his arms, the true embodiment of home.

 

“But I want to catch up with you,” he says, he _really_ missed hearing her talk, though his yawn immediately afterwards betrays him. “Tell me everything. Your cases, which of your brothers are annoying you this month, crossword puzzle highlights…”

 

“We have the rest of our lives to catch up, babe,” Amy reminds him, wrapping her leg around his to get just a little bit closer to him.

 

 _The rest of our lives_. He really likes the sound of that.


	4. i'm with you, there's nothing i won't do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six-drink Amy is scared of being alone. Jake really wants her to know that she’s not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from tumblr prompts:  
> Anonymous: Can you do peraltiago for 14 please 👏🏻👏🏻  
> 14\. “Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”
> 
> Anonymous: Oh my god pls #32!! I love your writing so much!!!  
> 32\. “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”
> 
> this is set around the time shortly after 3x07. title from i'm with you - vance joy

While a lot things change when Amy starts dating Jake, her stages of drunkenness remain largely the same. She’s still spacey, then loud. She still forces all of her friends to dance with her. She’s still a little bit of a perv after her fourth drink, though it’s much more targeted.

 

After one glass of wine, two shots of tequila and one beer, Amy locates Jake in the basement of Charles’ beach house and promptly pulls him into a bathroom for a mind-blowing eight minutes that he’s pretty sure their friends can hear from the next room and is sure they’ll never hear the end of at work next week.

 

After two more beers, Amy has disappeared from her spot on the couch (essentially on Jake’s lap, though nobody else is sober enough to care) and Jake is suddenly very uninterested in the conversation between his friends.

 

“‘Scuse me,” he mutters, passing his half-empty beer to Charles as he gets up and heads towards the stairs. Nobody’s in the living room or kitchen, so he heads towards their bedroom (a happy side effect of Jake and Amy’s new relationship is that by them sharing a room, nobody has to sleep on the floor or the couch).

 

He finds Amy the second he opens the door, though she isn’t already passed out on the bed like he suspected - she’s sitting on the floor at the foot of their bed, tears streaming down her face.

 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Jake closes the door and rushes over to her, kneeling down to reach her level. “Did something happen?”

 

“Don’t wanna be alone,” she murmurs, sinking further into the floor.

 

Jake recalls the events of last year’s trip, vaguely remembering a crying Amy lying on the floor much like this while Gina took care of her. Apparently, six-drink Amy hasn’t changed much either.

 

He shifts over and wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “You’re not alone. I’m here now.”

 

“Don’t wanna be alone...again,” she mumbles into his shoulder.

 

It dawns on him that she means it in the grander sense, not just referring to the few minutes she’s been by herself in their big, luxurious room with a view of the ocean (Charles insisted they take the master bedroom). Many of her past relationships that he knows about have been colossal failures and this one, though it seems perfect right now, is still _so new_.

 

“Hey, I’m with you, okay?” he tells her, feeling an innate need to comfort her in every way he can, kissing her forehead. She’s still shaking in his arms, so he decides to add something to ease her worries, a word that she may not remember in the morning but one that he means with all of his heart: “Always.”

 

She looks up at him with wide eyes, her lip trembling. “A-always?”

 

Maybe it’s the alcohol or how beautiful she looks in the soft lighting of their bedroom, but the thought of spending forever with this woman is not the least bit daunting right now.

 

“Always,” he promises her again, wrapping his other arm around her to pull her into a tight hug. She grips the material of his t-shirt and closes her eyes.

 

He’s beginning to think that she’s fallen asleep when she speaks again, her words interrupting the blissful silence.

 

“Can I tell you a secret?” she slurs, squeezing him a bit tighter.

 

He hums in agreement, continuing to stroke her back gently.

 

“I-I think I’m in love with you,” she whispers, “and I’m terrified.”

 

Jake’s head spins with delirious joy at her first mention of the L word, finally confirming he’s not alone in this crazy, beautiful feeling that only Amy Santiago has ever really given him (he’d fallen in love before her, but _never_ like this).

 

“I think I’m in love with you too,” he admits with no hesitation, “so there’s nothing to be scared of.”

 

She finally stops sniffling and thrusts her lips against his. It’s sloppy - she is _super_ drunk - but he welcomes the kiss nonetheless, his hand cradling her face. The makeout session is cut short when Amy pulls away for a moment to smile at him and is snoring on his chest a second later. Jake, in a complete state of euphoria, could not care less. He doesn’t even care to go rejoin his friends now that Amy’s out for the night - he would much rather lay in bed with her until he falls asleep.

 

He picks her up with an amount of care that he reserves almost exclusively for his girlfriend - he gets to call her his freaking _girlfriend_ now - and tucks her in under the thick duvet. He quickly pulls off his pants and climbs in next to her, inching closer until Amy sighs in her sleep and cuddles into him. In just two months, her body has grown accustomed to having something warm lying next to her, and he’s become more dependent than he’ll admit on her cuddling him to sleep.

 

Amy doesn’t seem to remember the conversation in the morning, and Jake thinks it might have just been a good dream, but when they wake up to the sounds of the ocean and walk downstairs hand-in-hand to seek coffee to alleviate their hangovers, there is a definite shift.

 

He doesn’t know exactly what the future holds for them yet, but he knows that he’s undeniably, without a doubt, with her for as long as she’ll have him (he hopes it’s always).


	5. if i had only felt how it feels to be yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three weeks after Jake Peralta gets married, he almost dies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more frickin angst i know i'm the worst...it's angst with a happy ending though guys!!!
> 
> title from turning page-sleeping at last aka the Crying Song

Three weeks after Jake Peralta gets married, he almost dies.

 

He knows he doesn’t always have the _best_ luck, but getting kidnapped during his first week back to work post-honeymoon seems pretty rough, even for him.

 

“Peralta, for the last time, if you don’t tell me where Rosa Diaz is _right now -_ “ the tall, extremely scary man with the even scarier Russian accent cocks his gun, and Jake _definitely_ isn’t doing everything in his power not to cower in fear - _“_ I will blow your brains out.”

 

His name is Petro Levitsky, and Jake recognized him the second he saw him. Two seconds later, he was grabbed by two equally scary guys and thrown into the back of a van. He and Rosa arrested him three years ago for a number of felonies so high Jake can’t remember it, but he does remember that Rosa was the one to actually catch him and send him to jail for life - which he seems to have somehow evaded.

 

“And for the last time, I’m not telling you,” Jake answers, tugging at the ropes around his wrists and ankles as if it’s going to do something. “You know, I don’t think you really even want to find her. She’s not very friendly, not the best company if you’re feeling chatty, honestly she’s pretty scary - “

 

“I forgot you were so annoying,” Levitsky mutters, rolling his eyes. “Maybe it’s time for some convincing, yes?”

 

Jake bites his lip as the two henchmen approach him, trying not to scream out in pain as he feels the first kick to his shin, then his stomach, his shoulder, his jaw. He clenches his fists so hard that he can feel his wedding band digging into his skin. And then he starts to think about Amy, which makes it all so much worse.

 

They were supposed to go grocery shopping tonight. It’s as mundane an activity as any, but it’s the first time they would be doing it as a married couple (they’ve been living off take-out since the honeymoon) and he was weirdly excited for it. That’s the thing about Amy: they’re just going grocery shopping, but it’s not just grocery shopping because they’re going to argue about what snacks to buy and eventually compromise with something like hummus and pita chips because it’s healthy enough for her but not revolting to him, then he’s going to steal a kiss in the frozen section while a soccer mom trying to get to the pizzas glares are them, and then they’ll get in the car and he’ll put on the new Taylor Swift album and sing along and she’ll laugh and grab his hand over the console while he drives.

 

He doesn’t want to miss out on grocery shopping.

 

“Fine, I’ll tell you where Diaz is,” Jake grunts as the men suddenly stop attacking him, looking to their boss for orders.

 

“I’m listening,” Levitsky says, arms crossed.

 

Jake, of course, has no intention of telling him that Rosa’s at her new girlfriend’s place in Bushwick. He just needs to buy time until the squad realizes he never came back from his lunch break and, hopefully, are able to track his location _somehow_ despite his phone being destroyed.

 

“She’s on vacation,” he says as confidently as possible, wincing as he sits up. “In France.”

 

He almost laughs at the image of Rosa eating a croissant or strolling through the Louvre, even in his current predicament.

 

“Then why did one of my cameras spot her a block away from the 99th precinct this morning?” Levitsky laughs coldly. “You shouldn’t have lied to me, Peralta. I hate liars.”

 

“Ironic, since you were charged with fraud, but-“ Jake stops talking as Levitsky raises his gun and points it directly at his forehead. He gulps and closes his eyes, seeing Amy and Charles and his mom and Rosa and Gina and Terry and Holt but mostly _Am_ y. He really doesn’t want to die, but if he has to die knowing he got three years with the most amazing woman on the planet, he still considers himself luckier than most. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make up for what he knows will happen to her if he dies - she’s so strong, but he knows it would be the one thing to break her.

 

He braces himself for the bullet, but it never comes. Instead, he’s blinded by light as the doors to the warehouse slide open, three figures moving towards him.

 

“Drop the gun!” He recognizes Charles’ voice instantly, his heart swelling with hope. As his eyes adjust he sees him handcuffing Levitsky.

 

To his right, the other figure - Terry, he realizes - single-handedly tackles and cuffs the other two, and neither dare to move afterwards. Holt comes into focus last, his eyes flicking from Jake to the perps.

 

“Jake, are you okay?” Boyle asks, handing Levitsky over to Holt and crouching down to look at his best friend with frantic energy.

 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jake says, finally letting out a breath as Charles unties him and helps him to his feet. He feels a bit of pain as he stands, but tries to ignore it. “Is Amy-“

 

Before he can finish, he sees another car pull up. Gina gets out of the driver’s seat first, followed immediately by Amy on the other side of the vehicle. Her usually perfect hair is messy from her running her hands through it so much. Her eyes are red and puffy, and she looks ready to burst into tears again when she sees him. This was definitely a ten on the Santiago panic scale.

 

His body is cursing at him, but he starts running towards her as she covers most of the distance herself. Her arms fling around him, and he’s filled with a sense of relief as she buries her face in his neck and kisses his collarbone.

 

He squeezes her tightly, practically lifting her off the ground, and he has to hold back his own tears as he hears her sob.

 

“Are you okay?” she tries to ask, but her voice breaks into more of a whimper halfway through. “Are you hurt?”

 

“It’s okay, baby, I’m alright,” he tells her, arms pulling her impossibly closer. “I’m right here. Not going anywhere.”

 

They don’t separate for another minute or so, holding each other silently and focusing on the other’s breathing until both of their accelerated heart rates ease up and they can breathe properly again.

 

“Its alright, Ames, you found me,” he says when she finally lets him go, holding both of his hands.

 

She manages a small, relieved smile, wiping away a few of her tears. “Technically, Gina found you.”

 

He turns around to face the squad, his right hand still interlocked with Amy’s. They’re all looking at them with some concern but mostly fondness and relief. Gina does a small bow (small by her standards), but looks at Jake with a genuine smile that she reserves for him and very few others.

 

“Gina’s knowledge of something called ‘the snap chat’ did prove invaluable to your rescue,” Holt explains.

 

“It’s just _Snapchat_ , Captain, we’ve been over this, and if it weren’t for me checking your most recent location before your phone got shut off and these guys couldn’t track it, we never would’ve found this place,” Gina explains. “Once again, I am the best detective in the precinct.”

 

Today, nobody corrects her.

 

“Okay.” Amy wipes her remaining tears away and breathes deeply, regaining her composure. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

 

“Babe, I’m fine. I’ve been like, way worse.”

 

“Because you’re a reckless person, not because you aren’t hurt right now,” she reminds him, squeezing his shoulder. When he winces, she raises an eyebrow. “I rest my case.”

 

He lets her lead him to Gina’s car, briefly stopping so she can yell what he’s pretty sure are the worst Spanish curse words she can muster (he’s only ever heard them during a game of Monopoly with Amy’s brothers, so he assumes they’re the filthiest and most ruthless words the language has to offer) at Levitsky in the back of Terry’s squad car - probably so Captain Holt can’t understand her and think any less of her, though Jake thinks their superior officer would tolerate a few f-bombs given the circumstances.

 

“That was kinda hot,” he mumbles unceremoniously while the rest of the squad stares at him. “Cut me some slack guys, I almost died!”

 

“It is _way_ too soon to joke about that,” Amy snaps, opening the back door of Gina’s SUV - even as a mom, she would not be caught dead with a minivan.

 

She climbs in next to him, moving all the way over to the middle seat so there’s no gap between them. Her hand finds his again, holding it with both of her own on his thigh, and she presses a long kiss to his shoulder over his t-shirt.

 

They don’t talk for most of the drive - Charles is too busy fussing over Jake from the passenger seat, leaning as far as he can towards the back until Gina yells at him that he’s blocking her rear view.

 

“Boyle, chill, I’m _fine_ ,” he repeats. “I already agreed to go to the hospital.”

 

“Okay, fine. Honestly, I was expecting a lot more resistance given your track record,” Charles points out.

 

Jake just sighs, looking down at Amy while she continues to rest her head on his shoulder and squeeze his hand with a vice-like grip that would probably hurt if he didn’t feel the same intense need to remind himself that she’s there.

 

“I don’t know, it’s different now,” he murmurs, thinking back to his years of chasing perps with reckless abandon and never once considering the potential consequences if he didn’t take care of himself. “I didn’t have so many reasons to care back then.”

 

 _And now I have one really good one_. It’s unspoken, but there’s a silent understanding between everyone in the car that he’s talking about his wife.

 

Amy freezes, slowly pulling her head up to meet his gaze. Her warm smile and the fresh tears spilling down her cheeks tell him more than she could ever articulate with speech.

 

“I love you,” she mouths, so Charles and Gina don’t hear. It’s important that this moment is just theirs.

 

He responds with a kiss that is probably too passionate for present company (he can hear Charles holding back what he’s pretty sure is an honest-to-god _sob_ until Gina hits his arm and tells him to shut up) but is met with the same desperate energy, her hand gently cupping his bruised cheek.

 

This - this beautiful, perfect thing that he shares with her - is a million times better than going out in a blaze of glory. This is love, in its purest form, and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Maybe his life turned out to be a little more rom-com and a little less of an action film, but he’s okay with that.

 

Explosions and Russian bad guys are overrated.


	6. from now on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post-prison fluffy timez

It’s the little things that make Jake feel like he’s really home again - watching TV while eating the takeout dinner they order after Amy burns the first one; Charles sending him a dozen photos of Nikolaj and Genevieve in the span of an hour; Holt’s voice yelling “Peralta!” after he spills hot chocolate all over important paperwork. These small, seemingly insignificant moments of his everyday life are what he craved most while in prison, even more than the vindication of arresting Hawkins or the satisfaction of being a free man.

 

Still, three weeks out of Jericho Supermax there are things that are different than before. He eats less and wakes up earlier, used to the rigorous schedule enforced by the prison guards. It’s a little harder to sleep at night when somewhere in the back of his brain, there’s the fear that the past few weeks have been a dream he could wake up from at any moment. He’s also still on desk duty, spending his days filling out forms while he watches exciting cases pass him by.

 

And then there’s Amy, his ray of light through any of the remaining darkness. On the three-week mark of his release, Jake comes home to her sitting on their bed, pieces of paper sprawled everywhere.

 

“What’s all this?”

 

Her head jolts up from where it was previously buried in a binder, her pursed lips spreading into a smile.

 

“Just looking over the life calendar,” she answers casually, scooting over to make room for him to sit next to her. “Making sure everything’s still on track.”

 

He glances over the array of her hopes and dreams for the future, plans for her advancement to becoming the youngest captain in the NYPD. It’s meticulously organized down to weekly tasks designed to help her reach her goal on time. It dawns on him that two months spending every moment of free time on getting him out of prison might have shifted her plans.

 

“Ames, I-“

 

“Don’t you dare apologize, Jake,” she interjects with a cautionary look. “Besides, I’m barely behind. I still solved as many cases as I normally would’ve while you were gone, even with your case as my primary focus.”

 

Jake furrows his eyebrows, trying to do the math of that in his head. “How is that possible? Did you even sleep?”

 

Amy goes silent, her eyes shifting away from him and back to the binders. Jake immediately catches his mistake, his arms wrapping around her from behind in an attempt to heal the wound he just opened. She confided in him on his second night home (the first was mostly relieved kisses and passionate reunion sex) about her many, many nights lying awake with no way to know if he was safe or when he was coming home.

 

“Sorry, babe,” he murmurs, lips pressed to her shoulder. “Why don’t we put this stuff away for tonight?”

 

She sighs, leaning back into his chest and holding his hand where it rests on her ribs. “Okay.”

 

He helps her reorganize the papers into their respective binders and place them back on the shelf, then silently retires to the kitchen to make them each a cup of tea. She curls up on the couch in fleece pajamas and beckons him over to join her, to which he happily complies.

 

“How were Gina and Iggy?” Amy asks him once they’ve settled into a comfortable position, sipping her tea with her head on his chest and pulling the blanket draped over both of them further up to cover her entire body. He adds _Amy always being cold_ to his mental list of things he didn’t realize how much he missed.

 

“Good, Gina hugged me and told me how much she missed me and then immediately blamed it on the new mom hormones and made me run like three errands for her.”

 

She laughs softly, the sound filling his heart with unbridled joy. “Sounds like Gina.”

 

Jake puts his mug down to properly hold her, one hand rubbing her back while the other rests on her legs. This is at the top of the list of things he _did_ realize how much he missed, the thing he spent every waking moment in his cell (along with most of his dreams) thinking about.

 

“Nine months,” she says after a moment. He looks down at her quizzically, completely stumped as to what she’s talking about. “When I was looking over my calendar, I realized…almost a month with me undercover in Texas, six months in Florida, two months in prison. We’ve spent more than a third of the time we’ve been dating apart.”

 

It feels like someone’s wrapped a fist around his heart. He hates, _despises_ the universe for doing everything it can to separate him from her. It’s a cruel injustice that they will never get those nine months back, that they’ve spent so much of their relationship having to make up for lost time.

 

“I’m never leaving you again,” he swears, punctuating the promise with a kiss to her forehead. “I swear to god, Ames, _never._ ”

 

He’ll add an extra layer of security to this vow in two weeks when he pulls off the ultimate Halloween heist, and he’ll swear to it again when he says “I do” six months after that. Even now, though, with only an unspoken understanding that they will spend the rest of their lives together, he can tell that she believes him.

 

“Good. Because I’m never letting you go.”

 

She shows him how literally she means it by curling both arms around his chest and hugging him tightly.

 

“Perfect, that means you’ll watch Die Hard 3 with me.”

 

She groans against his chest, her grip on him unwavering. “Babe, you know that’s my least favourite one.”

 

“What if I give you a massage while we watch it?”

 

Her face lights up at his offer. He knows for a fact that she’s sore from working a case in the field the past few days, though she hasn’t talked about work with him much since he’s been on desk duty.

 

Jake grabs the remote and turns on the TV, already displaying the main menu of the DVD he optimistically popped in before heading into their bedroom to find her earlier. She turns her back to him and sighs with relaxation as he begins to rub her shoulders, something he’s gotten _really_ good at it over the years they’ve been together judging by how frequently she asks him to do it and the sounds she makes while he does (sounds that he’s already very familiar with, though he’s usually doing something very different with his hands when he hears them).

 

“I love you,” she says twenty minutes into the movie, when she’s decided to give him a break and lean back against his chest so he can press intermittent, lazy kisses to her head. He’s heard her say it a thousand times, including through the speaker of a crappy cell phone every night in prison, and every time he thinks it could never sound any better. Every time, Amy proves him wrong.

 

“Love you too, babe.“ He doesn’t think that he ever manages to make it sound as good as she does, but the way that she immediately turns in his arms and kisses him is all the validation he needs.

 

All the mob bosses and corrupt cops in New York City couldn’t drag him away from her again.


	7. when you're scared and alone (just know that i'm already home)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake is in prison, and Amy is three days late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so emma (fourdrinkamy) prompted me w this and i may or may not have teared up a little writing the last part and had to remind myself that they are together and happily married now omg enjoy the angst
> 
> title from already home by a great big world

It takes Amy three days to notice that she’s late.

 

It _shouldn’t_ take that long, she’s as meticulous about her period as everything else in her life. She marks them on her calendar each month and checks taking her birth control pill off her to-do list each day. Never before in her _life_ has she been three days late.

 

Never before, though, has she been spending hours after each shift combing through files upon files about Melanie Hawkins and her team, looking for the slightest inconsistency or slip-up. Never before has she been surviving on four hours of sleep (if that), fuelled by coffee and the motivation to get her boyfriend out of jail before he’s beaten or shanked or _worse_.

 

It isn’t until Friday morning, while she’s sitting at her desk yawning after a particularly long night and jotting a note down in her calendar to visit Jake’s mother this weekend, that she spots the little X marked on Tuesday of that week.

 

Twenty minutes and one frantic trip to the bodega across the street later, she’s perched over the sink in the precinct bathroom, waiting for a tiny symbol to dictate whether or not her life is about to change drastically.

 

She’s thought about kids a few times over the past year: watching Jake play with Nikolaj in Charles’ living room on Christmas Eve, babysitting Cagney and Lacey and realizing maybe they _could_ handle parenting after all, helping her nephews build a blanket fort after dinner at her brother’s house. These thoughts have materialized in her brain as a faraway possibility for after they’re married. Ideally, she would already be a lieutenant or higher. _Ideally_ , the father of her child would not be indefinitely locked up in a prison a thousand miles away.

 

Just as she sets the timer on her phone for three minutes as instructed by the box, the bathroom door swings open. Amy cautiously looked around the bullpen before scurrying off to take the test and made the judgement that the few women on the floor had gone to the bathroom recently enough that she would not be interrupted. Her worn-out, panicked brain did not take into consideration that Gina is very pregnant and gets up to pee very frequently.

 

“Amy, what are you - _oh._ ”

 

By the time Amy meets her gaze, Gina is already looking at her with complete bewilderment.

 

“Are you-“

 

“I haven’t looked at it yet,” Amy says quietly.

 

Gina nods, slowly approaching her as if she’s made of dust and the slightest movement could make her disintegrate on the floor. It dawns on her that she must look as weak and helpless as she feels.

 

“No matter what it says, you’re not alone,” Gina promises her, her hand cautiously grabbing Amy’s, still gripping the edge of the counter for support. “You guys are gonna get him out, and even if you don’t…you’re not alone, okay?”

 

The sentiment of her friends supporting her is comforting, but another person being here, knowing that she may actually be carrying a child, tips the scale in her brain from stress and worry to full-blown panic. She _isn’t_ alone, she knows that, but no support system could make doing this without Jake any less terrifying.

 

Nothing could make the idea of raising a baby, _his_ baby, without him there every step of the way an even remotely acceptable possibility.

 

She doesn’t feel the tears until they’re soaking into Gina’s shirt over her shoulder, barely registering the sobs until they’re wracking her body and she’s clinging onto her friend for dear life.

 

“It’s gonna be okay,” she hears Gina say, her voice sounding distant, as though Amy is underwater and drowning.

 

“I-I can’t do it without him-“

 

“I know, girl. I know.”

 

The vibration of her phone, accompanied by the same loud, repetitive beeping sound that wakes her every morning, makes Amy jump out of Gina’s arms.

 

“Do you want me to look?” Gina asks, her eyes a little softer and more sympathetic after seeing Amy completely unravel before her. She’s kept most of her breakdowns since Jake’s been gone private and tries to put on a brave face at work, knowing that they’re all missing him and Rosa too.

 

Amy nods weakly, shakily wiping away tears with the sleeve of her blouse. She waits as Gina surveys the three tests on the counter (all different brands, to get the most conclusive result possible) and looks back up at her.

 

“All negative.”

 

The two words pass over her with a wave of relief, her body collapsing back against the wall behind her and sinking to the floor.

 

“I’m not pregnant?” she sputters, making sure she heard her correctly.

 

“You’re not pregnant.”

 

Gina comes to sit on the floor next to her, shoulder-to-shoulder, and pats her knee gently. Amy leans into her slightly as her stream of thoughts begins to clear.

 

“I’m three days late.” She tries to make sense of her body’s tardiness now that the most likely explanation is off the table, coming up with nothing. “I’m never late.”

 

“If you want, I can bring you to my OB/GYN appointment after work today to get checked out,” Gina offers. “She’s dope, we listen to Beyonce during my ultrasounds.”

 

Amy musters a small smile, nodding her head.

 

“Thanks, Gina.”

 

-

 

Just like every day, regardless of whether she’s still at the precinct or already home for the night, Amy is waiting anxiously by the phone for Jake’s call at ten o’clock. She picks up on the first ring, as always.

 

“Jake?”

 

“Hey, babe.”

 

His voice rings through her ears like a symphony. Their daily half-hour phone calls (as long as he can risk without a guard walking by) since he managed to acquire a contraband phone have been heavenly interruptions from an otherwise Jake-less existence.

 

“How are you doing?” she asks. “Is everything okay?”

 

The pause on the other end is a little bit too long, but it’s followed by an assured response that she knows is only for her benefit. “I’m doing okay. Just missing you.”

 

She subconsciously wraps his warmest, coziest blue hoodie tighter around her body. It’s one of the only ones that she hasn’t already worn to the point that she needed to wash it, one of the only things that still smells like him after nearly three weeks.

 

“I miss you too,” she sighs. “So much.”

 

“Is something wrong, Ames?”

 

It’s truly a testament to how well he knows her that he’s able to detect that something is off from so few words. She’s spent the past two hours since returning from the doctor’s office wrestling with whether or not to tell Jake about her false alarm today, or about the cause of it, which Dr. Abrams referred to as “alarmingly high stress levels.”

 

Though she doesn’t want to burden him with worries concerning her (she thinks she’s worrying enough for the both of them), there is nobody that she wants to - _needs_ to - talk to about this more than him.

 

“I, um-“ she fiddles with the edge of the comforter, closing her eyes as she lets out a deep breath. “I had to take a pregnancy test today. I was three days late.”

 

“Was it - are you-“

 

“It was negative, don’t worry.” She cuts him off before the worried thoughts that had saturated her brain earlier today can reach him. “It was just scary for a minute.”

 

Once again, her head spins with anxieties over the thought of what may have happened if the test had been positive.

 

“You never miss your period. Did you see a doctor?” His voice has lost its confident steadiness, a facade that she can tell he puts on for each phone call just to ease her mind.

 

“I did, I’m totally fine,” she swears, hoping that she’s convincing enough to put his mind at ease. “It’s just, you know, regular stress.”

 

It would be a better lie if she hadn’t been stressed about something every single day that he’s known her.

 

“Ames, please promise me you’re taking care of yourself,” he pleads, now discernibly worried.

 

“I’m good, babe, you don’t have to worry about me.”

 

She adds it to the growing list of lies she’s told him lately: _yes, I had dinner; no, I haven’t been crying; work was fine; I left the precinct hours ago._

 

“Okay,” he says, voice still laced with skepticism. “I’m really sorry I wasn’t there for you today.”

 

Her heart breaks, as if it can shatter any further. It is so annoyingly, utterly _Jake_ to apologize for not being able to comfort her when he’s the one behind bars.

 

“God, I love you,” she murmurs, tears falling onto the pillow supporting her head.

 

“I love you too,” Jake echoes, the words heavy with the weight of the miles between them. “And Ames, about the test…we’ll do that for reals one day, okay?”

 

She has to believe for her sanity that he’s right, that it won’t be fifteen years and that they won’t miss their window. The idea of doing the whole “married with children” thing with anyone else is not an option that she’ll even begin to consider, as she told her mother shortly after Jake received his sentence. He’s been it for her for a long time, probably even longer than she’s realized.

 

“We _would_ have cute kids,” she agrees, a small smile creeping on her face at the idea of creating something that is half-her and half-Jake (god, she hopes they get his hair and her organizational habits).

 

“The _cutest_. Our kid would put Terry and Charles and Gina’s kids to shame.” She can practically hear his trademark grin through the phone, though it’s a poor substitute for the real thing.

 

They spend the next twenty-eight minutes talking about hypothetical kids and the life they’re going to continue to build together. Afterwards, she sleeps the best she has in weeks, dreaming of the day that their happily ever after is no longer on hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO i've been told that a pregnancy test would not be accurate at that stage but for the sake of the story just pretend it is accurate and amy is defs not pregnant lmao


	8. i'm all out of love, what am i without you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked: Prompt for Jake and Amy: slow dancing in the kitchen?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100% unadultered newlywed fluff, i shamelessly borrowed the line at the end from andy and april on parks and rec

Their second night home after the honeymoon is, for the most part, completely ordinary.

 

Amy’s curled up in bed writing thank you cards for their wedding gifts when Jake arrives home from work, changes into more comfortable clothes and promptly begins making a ruckus in the kitchen that she assumes is him making some sort of terribly unhealthy dinner for himself rather than daring to eat the leftovers of the casserole she attempted to cook. The only thing that sets it apart from the many nights they’ve spent together in this very apartment is the ring on her finger, nestled next to the engagement ring that’s been there for six months, which she keeps glancing at fondly as she moves her pen across the cream-coloured paper.

 

Around the twentieth card, Amy’s hand begins to cramp. She’s a little disappointed that her writing skills have deteriorated slightly after only a week off work after her wedding. It doesn’t help that every “thank you” for the various kitchen appliances, silverware and envelopes of cash sent to them must also be accompanied by a “sorry you didn’t actually get to come to our wedding due to my enemy planting a bomb in our venue and trying to kill us all”, making the letters a bit longer than she originally planned.

 

“Babe, can you come in here?”

 

The initial joy of hearing her husband’s voice - and remembering for the hundredth time that he really is her _husband -_ from the other room is quickly replaced by the fear of whatever mess he’s caused that requires her immediate presence in the kitchen. She hopes to god that the Le Creuset pot Doug Judy sent them (she’s been trying not to think about the fact that it was almost definitely purchased with stolen car money) is not somehow already shattered on their kitchen floor.

 

She slips out of bed, pulls a thin hoodie on over her tank top and pajama bottoms and tightens her ponytail, preparing herself for damage control.

 

“Oh god, Jake, what did you-“

 

She stops as soon as she enters the kitchen, adjusting her eyes to the warm glow of the room in candlelight. There’s a bottle of wine (cheap wine, neither of them can really taste the difference) and two glasses on the counter, and soft music coming from the speaker on the shelf.

 

“What is this?” she asks, lips curving into a smile as she crosses the room to meet him, her hands landing on his waist and loosely gripping the material of his t-shirt. “Are we celebrating our nine-day-aversary?”

 

Jake smiles sheepishly, wrapping his arms around her and leaning in for a kiss. Despite being back in Brooklyn and miles away from their sunny week in paradise together, they are still very much in the honeymoon stage in all ways except geographically.

 

“I realized at work today that we never got to have our first dance,” he informs her, hands warm on her lower back.

 

She’s so intoxicated by his touch and the smell of her favourite candles burning on the countertop that she temporarily forgets about the many hours of writing still ahead of her. _Temporarily_.

 

“Babe, I _really_ have to finish those cards-“

 

“I thought you might say that,” Jake interrupts, a cocky grin on his face. “Which is why I’ve decided to help you finish them tomorrow so you don’t have to worry about it tonight.”

 

She narrows her eyes. “But-“

 

“My penmanship is terrible, I know. Charles is gonna write them on my behalf in exchange for me babysitting Nikolaj on his and Genevieve’s date night next week.”

 

Amy allows herself to relax into his embrace, arms wrapping languidly around his neck. She pulls herself up on to her tip-toes to plant a long, warm kiss on his lips.

 

“Have I told you you’re the best husband ever?”

 

Jake’s face lights up, thumbs gently brushing her waist. “It’s come up a few times. Not sure you’ve said it outside the bedroom, though.”

 

She rolls her eyes, though his words ring true: he’s proven himself as the best husband ever many times over the past week, more often through his actions than his words. He exceeded the expectations of even the wildest tabs of her honeymoon binder, subsection _sex stuff_.

 

“Alright.” She places a hand on his shoulder and wraps his hand in hers with the other, taking a small step back. “What’s the song, Peralta?”

 

To no one’s surprise, they decided to pick their first dance song through a bet. As the winner, Jake reserved the right to choose the song and refrain from telling her his choice until the wedding reception that never ended up happening.

 

Jake slips his hand out of hers for a moment to hit play on his phone, sliding it back into his pocket afterwards. Amy’s smile fades as the opening melody of the song begins and she recognizes it instantly.

 

“Jake, are you kidding me?” she exclaims. “Our first dance was gonna be to the song that reminds you of being rejected by your childhood crush?”

 

“Hey, I won the bet fair and square!” He pulls her back in, chuckling at the unamused look on her face. “For the record, thirteen year old me would’ve killed to dance with a girl as hot as you at my bar mitzvah. I would’ve been like, ‘Jenny Gilden- _who_?’”

 

Still unimpressed, Amy reluctantly takes his hand again and begins to move along with him to the music.

 

“Our friends and family would’ve teased us _relentlessly_ if we had danced to this,” she points out, cringing at the mental image of her brothers laughing and videotaping that moment.

 

“A small price to pay for living my teenage fantasy with the _real_ girl of my dreams.”

 

It’s definitely way too cheesy, but they’re allowed to be cheesy a mere nine days into their marriage. Honestly, she isn’t sure if she’ll ever get sick of hearing lines like that.

 

She lets Jake lead the dance, doing everything in her power not to step on his feet - she’s gotten a _little_ better at dancing with him over the years, but the improvements are hardly evident right now. She’s grateful that her socked feet are far less painful than heels when she inevitably does step on him and he winces.

 

“Sorry, babe,” she apologizes, tilting her head up slightly to kiss his jaw.

 

“It’s okay, this is nice.”

 

He pulls her closer, her head gently colliding with his chest and remaining there.

 

Closing her eyes, she begins to long for the quiet intimacy of their wedding night: the glimmer in his eyes as they exchanged vows under soft string lights outside the precinct; his arms wrapped around her as the laughter of their friends filled their booth in Shaw’s; ending the night in their apartment, wonderfully free of anyone else but them, with a fervent display of passion and emotion. It was the encapsulation of everything she had spent the past eight years feeling and denying, and eventually coming to terms with and embracing. But it was also the promise of more, the beginning of a life full of loving him.

 

“I’m so glad I married you,” she says, muffled by his t-shirt.

 

They’re so close now that it feels more like a hug than the waltz he was going for, barely swaying along with the music. He bows his head down to brush his lips against her shoulder.

 

“Yeah, we made a good call on that one.”

 

They dance in the kitchen until Jake’s eighties playlist has come to an end (he gets _really_ into ‘You Make My Dreams’ and makes her sing along with him), the candles begin to burn out and the entire bottle of wine is gone. She can’t help but feel uninhibited excitement for a lifetime of completely ordinary nights just like this one.


	9. simply the best, better than all the rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr prompt from peraltiago-babies: "I did the dishes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from the best - tina turner (schitt's creek feels anyone????)

There wasn’t one specific incident that precipitated Amy’s terrible, awful, complete shit-show of a day. In fact, no particular event was really all that horrible, but the culmination of everything - from spilling her coffee on the way to work to Major Crimes stealing one of the cases she’s been working on for weeks to Scully jamming the photocopier and leaving her to fix it - has her on the verge of a stress-provoked fit of tears the entire drive home.

 

She’s in such a rush to get home that the text she sent her boyfriend of two months on her lunch break (his day off coinciding with this disastrous chain of events did _not_ help her spirits) has completely slipped her mind. So much so that when her front door is already unlocked and a faint clatter of noise is coming from the kitchen, her hand reaches for her gun and she moves through the apartment with caution.

 

Her guard is lowered only when she hears a voice (not just any voice, but her absolute favourite) call out her name (but its ‘ _Ames_ ’, not Amy).

 

She throws her bag, gun, and jacket down near the door with atypical sloppiness, finally kicking off her shoes that she never would’ve worn past the entryway if not for the former concern that there was a murderer in vicinity.

 

The scene that she’s greeted with as she moves further into her homeleads her to believe that there _is_ in fact an intruder present. Certainly Jake Peralta, the man who lives off takeout and whom she once saw use a magazine as a plate, is not _voluntarily_ doing the dishes. And at _her_ apartment, nonetheless, where he spends one night a week at most due to his being closer to work, meaning the mess in the kitchen was not even of his own creation.

 

“Jake, what are you doing?”

 

Jake looks up from his position on the floor, trying to sort her pots into their rightful cabinets, appearing just a little bit distressed. Although, as she can tell with one quick look around, he’s already done the brunt of the work. The room is much cleaner than she left it on her way out the door that morning (after, of course, her first two alarms not going off and making her ten minutes late).

 

“I did the dishes,” he says nonchalantly, getting to his feet and shutting the cabinet door.

 

She continues to stare at him blankly. “I see that. I just… _why_?”

 

“Oh. I don’t know,” he shrugs, leaning back on the counter. “I guess I just felt bad because you’re always cleaning stuff up at my place and you said you were having a bad day so I thought it might be nice to come home to a clean-ish kitchen?”

 

She considers telling him that the reason she’s always cleaning at his place is more due to her inability to relax in a messy environment than their obligation to each other. Despite that messiness, though, his acknowledgement that lack of tidiness _does_ stress her out and that the simple act of cleaning up for her is infinitely more perfect than flowers or some other traditional romantic gesture makes her swoon. She’s pretty sure she’s been swooning (a verb invented solely for romance novels, or so she previously thought) a lot lately.

 

A smile appears on her face for the first time that day, but he only gets to see it for half a second before her lips are otherwise busy, moving against his with a burst of passionate energy.

 

“I should really do the dishes more often,” Jake hums after she releases him, arms still wrapped around his neck. His hands move to her back, pulling her into a warm hug. His breath, warm and fresh, tickles her neck as he speaks again. “I’m sorry you had such a crappy day. Want me to beat anyone up? Or maybe write a very strongly-worded email instead?”

 

Amy laughs, pulling him closer. “No, everything’s okay.” _Now that I’m with you_ , she thinks. “Just wasn’t my day. Thanks for coming over and doing all this and just…being you.”

 

He pulls away, and though she’s initially upset about the lack of contact, the big smile he’s flashing at her and his hands immediately finding a place on her waist again help compensate.

 

“All I have to do is ‘be me’? Damn, Santiago, the bar is _real_ low.”

 

She lets out another laugh, tucking her hair behind both ears.

 

“Don’t get me wrong, Peralta, the cleaning scored you _major_ points.” She rests her hands on his chest. “You didn’t even break any dishes, I’m impressed.”

 

He bites his lip, eyes shifting away from hers. “Um, about that…how much did you like that one blue pasta bowl on a scale from one to ‘I have to replace it’?”

 

She narrows her eyes and opens her mouth to scold him (gently, she didn’t really care for the bowl) but his lips cut her off in the best way. One brush of his hand over her skin underneath her blouse renders her completely useless in an argument, one sweep of his tongue inside her mouth makes her forget the English language entirely.

 

It was a bad day, but it’s about to be a _really_ good night.


	10. how wonderful life is while you're in the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 16\. "it's okay. i couldn't sleep anyway."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more post-florida fluff <3

Amy Santiago is a rational person. She’s spent the last six months sleeping in an empty apartment every night, aside from the odd sleepover on Rosa’s or one of her brothers’ couches when she got a little bit too lonely or sad. Theoretically, that should make sleeping alone at her place _once_ after a week at Jake’s an easy feat.

 

_Theoretically._

 

That theory, however, does not account for the fact that a single week is enough for her to remember how it feels to sleep in his arms. It does not take into consideration how much she missed kissing him goodnight. It completely disregards how totally miserable she was without him, and how each night he was away she would’ve given anything in the world to have him beside her.

 

So, she decides it isn’t really all that irrational to head to his place after fifteen minutes of unsuccessfully trying to sleep in her own bed after a long night of work.

 

She arrives at eight in the morning, her new bedtime since being assigned to the dreadful night shift. Thankfully, Jake has already adjusted to the work schedule he’ll have to adapt to in a week when he’s medically cleared to return; he slept for fourteen hours after returning from Florida, induced by exhaustion and painkillers, and kept up with the nocturnal lifestyle so they could maximize their time together when she’s not working - they have _so much_ to make up for.

 

“Jake? It’s me, babe.” She makes her presence known as she unlocks the door to his apartment, not wanting to startle him.

 

“Ames!” His face absolutely lights up from his position on the couch, his injured leg propped up on the coffee table and an ice pack resting on his thigh over a pair of sweatpants. “I thought you were staying at your place tonight? Not that I’m complaining.”

 

She beams back at him, dropping her purse on the counter next to the assortment of empty pizza boxes and soda cans, evidence that neither of them have left the apartment this week unless absolutely necessary.

 

“I changed my mind,” she shrugs, sitting next to him and going in for a quick kiss. She lingers in his space, her nose brushing against his and her hand cupping his cheek. “It was hard to sleep without you.”

 

His grin melts into a soft gaze, warm brown eyes looking intently into hers. She’s caught him looking at her like this many times since their reunion, and the feeling that arose in her chest in the back of an ambulance in Florida (and on the flight back to New York and while cuddling in bed after their first night together in way too long) persists.

 

“It’s okay.” His hand trails down her arm until it reaches hers, which instinctively flips to lock their fingers together. “I couldn’t sleep either.”

 

A small, pained groan leaves his mouth as he shifts to kiss her again and accidentally jostles the secured position of his leg.

 

“Are you okay?” She pulls away from him immediately, moving to help him readjust his injured limb for optimal comfort. “Is it bothering you a lot today?”

 

There is a certain amount of guilt that comes with shooting your boyfriend in the leg, even out of pure necessity to save him from a gun that would’ve ended his life (and subsequently hers as she knows it). Although she knows he doesn’t blame her in the slightest and the many jokes about her ‘owing him’ to coerce her into certain things (mainly watching _Die Hard_ countless times, being the big spoon and doing that one thing he really likes in bed) are nothing more than his typical teasing, she’s been doting on him a little more this week than she typically would.

 

“It’s not too bad, just a little sore,” he says with a reassuring smile once he’s settled back into his former position.

 

Her fingers run through his hair, now gloriously free of awful blonde highlights (she would’ve made him shave them off earlier if she weren’t too happy to have him back to care) and make their way down to cup his cheek. Her heart jumps when he leans into her touch.

 

“I was stupid to think a week was enough time to try to sleep without you,” she admits, in a trance of deep affection for the man before her. Over the past week, she’s made a habit of voicing even the most emotional of her thoughts about him - there were far too many times she laid awake at night wishing she had been more open about how much he meant to her. “I think I forgot how nice it is to fall asleep next to someone. Next to _you_.”

 

In comparison to some of the sickeningly sweet things she’s said, which he’s matched with equal sentiment, her line isn’t _too_ corny. Today’s shift was the first since their return from Florida that she didn’t call him for the entirety of her lunch break and discuss a variety of topics ranging from how much she misses him to how much she loves him. Being apart from her boyfriend for _half a damn year_ gets her a free pass on cheesiness and workplace appropriateness.

 

(When she mumbled an apology to Rosa - they were all pissed about being on the night shift, but she looked slightly more irritated than before after listening to Amy talk about how excited she was to get back to Jake’s for twenty minutes - the other woman simply nodded, her look of disdain fading, and said she would take it over the many lunch breaks Amy spent venting about how much she missed him.)

 

“Awwwwww,” Jake grins, opening his arms widely. “Get over here, ya big sap.”

 

She happily accepts his invitation, hastily moving towards him and sighing, a little dramatically, as she nestles herself into him. She can already feel her body temperature rising with his warm embrace, his arms doing far more than her flannel pajama pants and the borrowed hoodie she kept the entirety of his time away ever could. The peace that falls over her, the feeling of complete and unconditional safety, makes her eyes flutter shut within seconds. She wonders how she _ever_ slept without him.

 

“You can stay here as many nights as you want, babe,” he whispers, almost as if he’s reading her mind. “Or, you know…I’m not sure if you remember the last full conversation we had before I left because everything was kind of a blur after that, but-“

 

“I absolutely still want to move in with you, Jake.”

 

She thinks back to that night at Shaw’s before her world was ripped out from under her. The brief moment of unadulterated excitement that they were going to live together was quickly quashed, but the hope that he would come home and they would follow through with their plan was one of the things that kept Amy going for six months.

 

“We can figure it out once you’re better,” she adds, patting his leg gently a few inches below the thick bandages.

 

She can hear him breathe a sigh of relief, suggesting that he’d been looking forward to that day as much as she had. His head leans against the top of hers.

 

“I can’t wait.” She kisses his neck in response to his words, then his collarbone. “I love you so much, Ames.”

 

“I love you more,” she hums against his chest. “Please never piss off a murderer again unless you’re putting them behind bars.”

 

It takes her a few minutes to muster the energy to get up and help him limp over to his bed, crawling in on the side that became hers just about a year ago. He finally agrees to be the big spoon and pulls her up against his chest, his lips ghosting over the back of her neck, with a strong arm coiled around her middle.

 

She’s happily dozing in a fraction of the time she would’ve been without Jake’s warm embrace, and she thanks the stars shining above his little Brooklyn apartment that the universe decided to return her annoying partner, loyal best friend and truest love.


	11. and the world's a little brighter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> little drabble of jake and amy cuddling post-honeymoon sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOW GOOD WAS THAT EPISODE?!?!?!? this contains some spoilers for it btw so don't read if u haven't watched it obviously!!

Jake lets out a deep breath as Amy (his freaking _wife,_ his brain keeps pleasantly reminding him) rolls off his body and collapses on the comfortable bed beside him.

 

“That was...”

 

“Amazing,” Amy finishes, tugging off the wig that shifted to be slightly askew but somehow managed to stay on through several rounds of sex. The entirety of Jake’s Melvil Dewey outfit and the rest of hers are discarded on the floor several feet from the bed.

 

Jake pulls her into him before he can even catch his breath, her dewy skin warm against his as she curls into his side with her hair loosely falling down her bare shoulders. She looks like a dream that Jake really doesn’t want to ever wake up from.

 

“ _You’re_ amazing,” he mumbles, his cheek smushed into her forehead. “Seriously, if you told a teenage me that I would be having sex with a hotter version of Holly Gennero, I would’ve had a heart attack on the spot.”

 

Amy smiles, turning over so her chest is pressed to his and she’s facing him. She runs her fingers through the (now slightly sweaty) curls just above his forehead. “And what would teenage Jake think about being married to her?”

 

“Oh, that would’ve killed me _for sure_.”

 

Laughter erupts from both of their mouths, Amy pausing the joyous sound with a kiss that neither of them can stop smiling enough to execute properly.

 

“You weren’t so bad yourself, Dewey. Even if your terminology was a little off.”

 

“Yeah, your Holly impression was way better,” Jake admits, his hand lightly rubbing up and down her back.

 

“I know, it’s almost like my husband’s forced me to watch that movie over a hundred times,” Amy deadpans.

 

He grins and pecks her lips again. “You wouldn’t have me any other way, babe.” She’s certainly made _that_ explicitly clear over the past half-hour while expressing her extreme fondness for her husband and the things he does to her.

 

She sighs in agreement and tucks her head into the crook of his neck, pressing lazy, affectionate kisses everywhere her lips can reach. Her eyelids begin to droop with exhaustion from their activities and the calming motion of Jake continuing to stroke her back.

 

“Should we nap for an hour, shower and head to dinner?” Jake proposes, holding her a little closer as he shifts into a comfortable sleep position.

 

Amy hums with contemplation, tracing random patterns with her finger on his chest.

 

“Counteroffer - we nap, have sex in the shower, order room service and have sex again?”

 

Jake’s eyes go wide and his neck cranes to look at her. “Oh my god, Ames. I just realized something.”

 

She frowns a little, the look on his face being troublingly similar to his ‘I left the stove on’ expression. “What is it, babe?”

 

“I have the best wife in the universe,” he replies with a massive grin.

 

She rolls her eyes, but the equally wide smile on her face gives away her all-consuming love for both her husband and his occasionally cheesy lines. She never was very good at masking her feelings for Jake Peralta.

 

“I love you so much, dork.”

 

She punctuates the eternally true statement with a brief kiss. Jake lingers in her space after she pulls away and gently bumps their foreheads together.

 

“I love you so much too, Ames.”

 

It’s not the first and certainly not the last time they exchange such a sentiment on their week (now extended to two by Holt, who they are now blissfully rid of) in paradise. Neither of them have held back their expressions of the utmost happiness that after a somewhat turbulent few years they’re finally happy and safe and together. The realization that this time a year ago, Jake was facing fifteen years in prison, and now he’s at a five-star resort with the love of his life and _married_ to her nearly brought him to tears during their first night here.

 

Neither of them can predict the future, but Jake’s pretty sure the worst is behind them. No matter what life throws at them, a lifetime of loving this incredible woman, his partner in every way, is looking pretty damn good.


	12. nothing safe is worth the drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3x01 canon divergent - where jake drives to amy's before she gets the chance to come over and give her "screw light and breezy" speech

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for storyinmyeyes on tumblr!  
> title from treacherous by taylor swift aka one of the best songs of all time

The distance between Jake and Amy’s apartments spans only ten blocks. It doesn’t seem like a lot on a typical day, when he’s driving over there to bring her a hot chocolate because the guy at the store gave him an extra and he knows she loves it, or when he offers to give her a ride home because her car’s in the shop even though half of their coworkers live much closer. It _does_ seem like a lot, certainly enough for his mind to cover a vast spectrum of emotions, when he’s on his way to tell her how he feels about her.

 

Ten blocks from Amy’s apartment, Jake briefly glances over at an overly excited Charles Boyle while shoving his key in the ignition of his old and battered Mustang, and he thinks about kissing Amy. It’s really all he’s thought about for the past two days. She’s an amazing kisser, and maybe a small part of him expected that, but none of his dreams or fantasies about the subject prepared him for the reality. She tastes like heaven, and the noises of contentment and pleasure she made while he kissed her (outside his apartment, in the staircase, on the couch, finally in his bed) were nothing short of ethereal.

 

Eight blocks from Amy’s apartment, Jake thinks about how much she means to him, how important it is that he doesn’t screw this up. There’s a lot on the line - she’s his best friend. His favourite coworker. More often than not, she’s the best part of his day. She’s so incredibly important to him and he simply can’t risk losing her.

 

Seven blocks.

 

Jake thinks about turning around. He’s screwed up every other relationship in one way or another. Amy doesn’t want to date cops. There have already been so many complications in so little time. The odds seem to be stacked against them.

 

Five blocks.

 

A Taylor Swift song comes on the radio and gives him a surge of newfound confidence. Taylor would definitely want him to at least _try_ to get the girl.

 

Three blocks.

 

He tries to string his thoughts together in a more coherent speech than _god I just like you so much and I would literally do anything just to keep hanging out with you and kissing you as much as possible._

 

Two blocks.

 

He’s coming up empty on the speech thing. He decides to wing it.

 

Less than one block.

 

He’s sufficiently freaking out and starting to worry that “winging it” isn’t the best idea for something so incredibly important.

 

“Jake!”

 

He snaps back into reality with Charles shaking his shoulders, realizing that he’s parked in front of Amy’s building on auto-pilot.

 

“Jake, we’re here. It’s go time.”

 

Jake nods, swallowing the fearful lump in his throat and trying to suppress the worries occupying his brain.

 

“Okay. I’m doing this.”

 

Charles gives him an encouraging two thumbs up and Jake hops out of the car, jogging up the front steps of her second floor walkup.

 

With only a door separating Jake from Amy’s apartment, his fist tapping the wood twice in quick succession, he is _terrified_. There are just too many possibilities that it won’t work or he’ll say the wrong thing or she’ll shut him down again.

 

But then she appears in the doorway, her eyes widening as she takes him in (he’s still panting from the short jog upstairs and his hair’s messy from his hands running through it out of stress). And god, she’s so beautiful.

 

“Jake? What are you doing-“

 

“I don’t want to go back to being colleagues.”

 

He doesn’t mean to interrupt her, or even to start talking, but his lips are moving without his brain’s permission. She doesn’t respond at first, just looks up at him and waiting for more elaboration.

 

“I-I’ve liked you for a long time. You know that.” He scratches the back of his head, shifting his footing and avoiding her eye line. “But you don’t know how bad I’ve wanted this - us - to happen for so long. You don’t know how amazing these past two days have been for me. Not just the sex and stuff - I mean, don’t get me wrong, that stuff was really good too - but, I just…it felt really nice to not have to hide how I really feel about you. And you don’t know how much I like you, because if you did you would get why I think this is worth having to deal with crap at work or pretty much anything else life throws at us. You don’t know _how_ worth it this is to me.”

 

Amy remains silent when he finishes his short, completely unprepared but utterly true speech. His brief moment of courage fades and is replaced once more with anxiety and fear of what she may say. Her face flashes with so many different emotions that he has no idea what to expect when she does finally speak after a period of five seconds that feels like an eternity.

 

“I do know.”

 

Jake blinks at her, unsure if he heard the words correctly despite the fact that she spoke them with complete clarity and sureness.

 

“You-you do?”

 

She nods, biting her lip as she takes a small step closer to him.

 

“Of course I do, Jake,” she says, quieter than before. “Everything you said…it’s the same for me.”

 

He lets out a breathless laugh, his eyes radiating with affection and pure joy as he finally lets himself hold her gaze. She’s looking at him with similar reverence.

 

“Does that mean you want to-“

 

Her lips are very quickly pressed to his, her arms simultaneously wrapping around his neck and pulling him down to reach her level so she has better access to his mouth. With only two days of kisses under their belt, Jake already feels a warm kind of familiarity laying underneath the still very new excitement of kissing Amy. His heart is racing at the idea of kissing his long-time partner, coworker, and friend, but his hands move to her back on instinct and his lips fit in hers so perfectly that it feels like they’ve been doing this for years.

 

They pull apart slowly, and he smiles a little bit to see her eyes still closed and her lips still parted even as they separate. Her hands rest on his chest over his hoodie as she finally opens her eyes to look at him and her lips form a broad grin.

 

“I think this is worth it, too.”

 

Jake laughs again, just as softly, not wanting to burst their little bubble of sincerity and emotion.

 

“Okay. Noice.”

 

He runs his hands down her arms until their hands meet and link together, only then realizing that she’s wearing a jacket and boots.

 

“Were you going somewhere?” he asks, trying to pull his hands away and relaxing as she tightens her grip. “I don’t wanna hold you up if you have some place to be.”

 

She smiles, shaking her head. “No, Jake, I don’t - I was actually headed to your place to tell you pretty much the same thing.”

 

His face softens even more, if that’s possible at this point. His hands slip out of hers to cradle her face, pulling her into a kiss that is inarguably the most tender and patient they’ve shared, all of the nervous energy dissipating. It feels like a kiss between two people in a relationship, no longer just pining after one another endlessly.

 

There is even more evidence on Amy’s face supporting her claim that she truly feels the same way he does when they pull away this time. Her eyes are glistening, looking up at him the same way he sees her look at new binders and thick case files.

 

“You wanna come in?” She gestures to the inside of her apartment.

 

“Definitely,” he grins, clutching her hand as she slips it into his again. “Also, I should probably text Charles. He’s waiting in my car downstairs.”

 

Amy laughs, rolling her eyes at the typical Boyle behaviour the way she does across the desk from him at work every day, and pulls him inside.

 

One step inside Amy’s apartment, he’s not so scared anymore.


	13. he's the earth and heaven to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is truly through no fault of Caleb Donovan, a handsome man in his late thirties with a job at the Museum of Natural History, that Amy decides to abandon their first date before she’s finished her first cocktail.
> 
> It would be easy to blame Captain Holt, who asked her to join Jake on a stakeout in Prospect Heights, or Charles, who had to leave said stakeout due to food poisoning from the sketchy seafood truck they’ve all suggested a million times that he avoid. She could peg it on her dedication to her career, though surely her name on the arrest report for a low-level marijuana dealer won’t make or break any future promotions. 
> 
> (By far the most likely option is the text she got from Jake as soon as her call with Holt came to an end - u coming to stakeout? i’ll let you choose the music - which made her brain short-circuit longer than she would care to admit.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is 100% inspired by 'i won't say i'm in love' from hercules so make of that what u will
> 
> set late s2, some time after boyle-linetti wedding

It is truly through no fault of Caleb Donovan, a handsome man in his late thirties with a job at the Museum of Natural History, that Amy decides to abandon their first date before she’s finished her first cocktail.

 

It would be easy to blame Captain Holt, who asked her to join Jake on a stakeout in Prospect Heights, or Charles, who had to leave said stakeout due to food poisoning from the sketchy seafood truck they’ve all suggested a million times that he avoid. She could peg it on her dedication to her career, though surely her name on the arrest report for a low-level marijuana dealer won’t make or break any future promotions.

 

(By far the most likely option is the text she got from Jake as soon as her call with Holt came to an end - _u coming to stakeout? i’ll let you choose the music -_ which made her brain short-circuit longer than she would care to admit.)

 

So she bids the smart, sexy historian that Kylie swore she would like (and she probably _should_ like) goodnight, gives him ten dollars to cover her drink and mumbles an apology about her work emergency. She sincerely hopes he didn’t overhear her insisting that she didn’t have any plans and was “free as a bird” when Holt offered to send Rosa instead.

 

It doesn’t occur to her to swing by her place and change or remove her bright red lipstick or even pull back her curled hair before she’s parking behind Jake’s Mustang and sliding into the passenger seat. The realization that she probably should’ve changed doesn’t dawn on her until Jake’s eyes linger on her for a second longer than they usually do and he, rather quickly, jerks his head away and fixes his eyes on the parking lot in front of them.

 

“Why, um - why are you dressed like that?”

 

“You look nice too, Peralta,” she says teasingly, with a small eye roll that she hopes distracts him from the blush creeping onto her cheeks at his flustered reaction. “I was on a date.”

 

He doesn’t respond at first, his eyes remaining glued to the completely empty lot where their perp isn’t expected to show up for another hour.

 

“Oh, I got you a coffee, you take seven sugars and four creams, right? I wasn’t sure if I mixed up the numbers.” He glares at her seriously while she narrows her eyes, eventually cracking a smile. “Just kidding. It’s only got milk.”

 

Amy smiles gratefully, reaching to grab the steaming cup he’s holding out for her. She takes a small sip, furrowing her brows in confusion at the slightly different taste.

 

“Wait, is this-”

 

“Decaf, yeah. It’s almost nine, and a crazy person once told me that drinking regular coffee this late is ‘sleep schedule suicide’, so…”

 

She rolls her eyes again, and she’s pretty sure the affection behind it is even more poorly restrained than the last one.

 

“Thanks.”

 

It takes a few minutes for him to brief her on the details of the case, after which they fall into a familiar, comfortable silence while closely watching the spot where Jake’s CI told them his dealer would show up between the hours of nine and ten. True to his word, he allows her to select a soft alternative station on low volume that is far less distracting than his usual picks - she never guessed that she would become so familiar with Taylor Swift’s discography at thirty-one.

 

“So, I take it the date didn’t go well?”

 

The coffee she just sipped catches in the back of her throat the question, making her cough unceremoniously. The topic of her love life has been unofficially off-limits since the dreadfully awkward demise of her and Teddy’s relationship. Her dates since then have been few and far between, and she really doesn’t want Jake to piece together why none of them have turned into anything more before she can fully understand it herself.

 

“Um, it was fine,” she mumbles, playing with the hem of her dress. “He was nice and he has a good job and everything-”

 

“He was boring, then?” Jake infers, a smug look on his face.

 

She purses her lips. “Actually, no. He’s really into sports and he plays guitar and-”

 

“Then why’d you ditch him for a boring stakeout?” He raises an eyebrow, making her cheeks burn under his questioning glare. “Rosa would’ve covered for Charles if you said you were busy.”

 

“I-I don’t know,” she stutters as it becomes increasingly harder to breathe. “I guess there was just something missing.”

 

She isn’t sure if the chill running up her spine is a result of the chilly air and her exposed arms or purely a biological response to the feelings threatening to burst out of her chest, but she busies herself with adjusting the dial to turn up the heat.

 

“Oh, the heating’s broken,” Jake says apologetically, even though there’s no way _he’s_ cold in mid-April. “I was gonna fix it, but ya know, crushing debt and all…”

 

“It’s okay,” Amy interjects, running her hands up and down her goosebump-clad arms.

 

Her sharp, clear tone would normally indicate to him that the conversation is over, but his eyes don’t leave her shivering frame until she sees him begin to shrug off his leather jacket in her peripheral vision.

 

“Jake, it’s fine-”

 

“You’re clearly cold,” he mutters, wrapping the jacket around her shoulders and unintentionally grazing the skin of her forearm in the process.

 

With his coat draped over her, the sleeves noticeably too long, and his body so close to her that she can feel his warmth emanating, she can’t control the sudden burning desire that he was her date tonight. She’d sworn before that being one of the girls in his car was her worst nightmare, but it feels more like an idyllic fantasy right now to be able to lean over and press her lips to his and run her fingers through his hair.

 

“Thanks, Jake,” she says, voice lower than before.

 

His face softens as their eyes meet, a small lopsided smile creeping onto his face that barely offsets the earnest, thoughtful look in his deep brown eyes. Their faces are even closer now, so close that it would take very little effort for her to kiss him.

 

“Any time, Ames.”

 

He smiles a little more after using the nickname, which has become almost a regular thing lately, and she tries not to try to find correlation with his breakup with Sophia or the number of times he’s asked her to grab a drink after work or the secret glances she’s noticed him take while he does his paperwork. It’s the same look that he gave her a couple weeks ago at Charles and Gina’s parents’ wedding, and this exact smile has not left her mind since.

 

The thought of kissing him is now so tantalizing that she’s about to drop everything, every charade and excuse and lie that she’s told him and everyone and herself to try to prove that she isn’t crazy about him. Any consequence that could possibly come from it is overshadowed by the long-growing need to be closer to him, to tell him and _show_ him how much her feelings have intensified.

 

She moves about half an inch in his direction before she spots a flurry of movement in the corner of her eye.

 

“Is that your guy?” she asks, still waiting for Jake to snap out of the magnetic trance they had both just fallen under.

 

Blinking fast, Jake spots the man stepping out of the sedan a few dozen feet away and nods quickly.

 

“Yeah, let’s go.”

 

The arrest takes about thirty seconds, transporting the perp back to the precinct occupies another ten minutes, and they’re forced into another premature goodnight by the time the clock strikes ten. She settles back into her car and checks her phone, leaving the confused texts from Kylie about why she ditched her date for the morning.

 

It’s not an easy feat to explain to her best friend, who she’s spent _hours_ complaining to about her annoying coworker that she’s constantly competing with and his childish antics, that she could set her up with the nicest, smartest, most interesting guy in New York and she would still choose Jake Peralta. In a heartbeat, in any version of reality, she would choose Jake Peralta.

  
She thinks she made that choice a long time ago, and all that’s left to do at this point is to work up the courage to act on it.


	14. take my hand, take my whole life too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> amy refers to jake as the love of her life, and jake, being the little shit he is, decides to mess with her despite already having every intention to marry her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~cheesy~  
> title from can't help falling in love

The first Saturday morning Jake spends at home begins with rays of sunlight peeking through the curtains, dark hair splayed across his chest and the soft hum of traffic outside their window.

 

Before he’s aware of any of this, before he’s opened his eyes or has woken enough to be cognizant of his surroundings, he feels the small, familiar frame of his girlfriend in his arms. They’re in almost the same positions in which they fell asleep, neither of them straying too far throughout the night. He can feel her warm, even breaths, her arm snugly wrapped around his torso, her head tucked into his shoulder; all the pieces of his once again shattered world coming back together.

 

He tightens his grip on her reflexively and, as she begins to stir, hopes that he hasn’t accidentally woken her. Much like himself, he knows that she’s still catching up on months of lost sleep. To his relief, she merely snuggles closer to him and murmurs against his neck in a voice so low and muffled that it’s almost imperceptible, “ _love you_.”

 

He very quickly realizes that she hasn’t woken up yet, that she’s still oblivious to every aspect of the world aside from the fact that _he is here_ and _she loves him_. Warmth begins to bubble deep in his chest, rising to his throat and making it increasingly hard not to burst into tears over how much he loves this woman. He’s always struggled with words of emotion, but lately, he can’t even begin to convey how deeply and profoundly grateful he is for Amy Santiago.

 

She’s done everything and more for him. Holt briefly mentioned her endless hours working the case on top of her usual workload, her determination to bring him home rivaled by none; his mother spent a good portion of their lunch yesterday fawning over his girlfriend and telling him how she called to check in on a weekly basis and even came over for Yom Kippur dinner a couple weeks ago just to make sure that she wasn’t alone, despite the fact that it was visibly painful for her to be there without Jake; Charles went on and on about how Amy was willing to sacrifice _everything_ just to get him and Rosa out.

 

He has no idea how he could ever repay her for all of that, but vowing to love her just as vehemently for the rest of his life seems like a good start.

 

(If all goes to plan on Halloween, he’s much closer to being able to fulfill that promise.)

 

For the moment, he settles for burying his face in her hair and pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head, murmuring an even quieter “I love you” in return.

 

The slight movement causes her to stir again, her lips releasing a soft hum of contentment as her eyes flutter open and land on his face. Half-lidded with sleep, her dark brown irises shine with adoration and wonder, accompanied by a bright smile as she lifts her head to rest her chin on his chest.

 

“Morning,” she says, idly reaching up to run her fingers through his messy bed hair (it’s no secret how much she cares for it).

 

He cups the back of her head to pull her in for a long, sufficiently drawn-out kiss, her lips soft and compliant against his as she cradles his cheek and slides her leg in between his.

 

“Morning, babe,” he mumbles into the kiss, accentuating it with a peck before pulling back.

 

They resume their position from before, only now their legs are intertwined as well and Amy’s hugging him more tightly than she did in sleep. Mornings like this, free of work or any sort of responsibility to the outside world, are reserved for these quiet moments of intimacy and relaxation.

 

Still, in typical Santiago fashion, Amy usually makes sure that this part of their day _stays_ in the morning and it’s getting dangerously close to noon according to the clock on his bedside table. They rarely sleep in this late, but they’ve essentially lost all concept of time in the few days he’s been home. Other than seeing his mom, getting drinks with the squad and going to Gina’s to meet the baby, they’ve hardly found a reason to leave this bed.

 

“We should get up and make breakfast,” Amy says - right on cue.

 

He’s already forming a game plan to negotiate a few more minutes; he has a couple tricks up his sleeve with varying success rates (for example, he would place going down on her at around 90% and offering to clean the apartment later somewhere closer to 40%) that he’s willing to implement.

 

“Or we could stay and cuddle for at least another half-hour.”

 

“Hmm...” She muses, and he’s mentally gearing up to begin his methods of persuasion. He doesn’t get the chance to pull out any of his tricks before Amy slips her hand under his t-shirt and nuzzles her face into his neck, inhaling softly and closing her eyes once more. “Okay, a few more minutes.”

 

She _never_ does this.

 

“Since when is it this easy to convince you to stay in bed?” Jake wonders, still sliding his hands under her sweater and pulling her impossibly closer to take full advantage of these extra minutes. “I didn’t even have to ploy you with sexy times.”

 

Amy glances up at him quickly, just long enough for him to see a flash of the anguish that she’s so clearly been trying to hide from him since he got back. She’s always trying to be strong for him, even though he knows that this ordeal has been painful for her just as it has been for him and Rosa,even though he’s made it clear to her that they need to heal _together_.

 

Her lips press against his neck, warm and gentle, before she responds.

 

“Since the love of my life went to prison,” she mumbles softly. “And I really, really missed this.”

 

The words ring in his ears: _love of my life._ Amy Santiago, inarguably the most incredible person in the history of the universe as Jake knows it, considers him to be the love of her life.

 

The title doesn’t surprise him - there’s no way it _could_ after she’s given him all of her love for the past two years, stayed by his side through every hardship and brought him home to her when the universe did its best to tear them apart. Of course, he’s likeminded in the idea that she’s the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with (a moment of epiphany on April twenty-eighth, an elaborate proposal plan concocted in his prison cell to keep him from going insane and the ring he purchased the day after he was exonerated are proof of that).

 

 _But,_ doesn’t mean he can’t mess with her.

 

He shifts away only slightly to get a better view of her face and prop himself up on one elbow, sporting a small smirk. “So...I’m the love of your life, huh?”

 

Much to his delight - and his expectation, because he knows her so well (she is the love of his damn _life_ , after all) - a deep blush creeps its way into Amy’s cheeks and toward the tip of her nose.

 

“I just meant-”

 

“It’s okay, babe,” he says with a gentle laugh to put her slightly at ease, kissing her rosy cheek. “Say it again?”

 

She rolls her eyes and buries her face in his shoulder.

 

“C’mon,” Jake whines, pecking her temple twice, “say it again.”

 

“I don’t wanna-”

 

His hands move from her back to her stomach, beginning to tickle her just below the ribs, a spot he knows to be her weakest point. As she starts to squeal and protest, he climbs over her where she lays on her back and begins to lay equally incapacitating kisses down her neck, eliciting even more giggling.

 

“ _Fine_ ,” Amy exclaims through carefree laughter, gently pushing him back to meet her eye line. “You’re the love of my life, Jake Peralta. Are you happy?”

 

Now hovering over her, he allows himself a moment to memorize every detail of her face just in case - god forbid - some additional cruel twist of fate forces them to part and he’s once again left with nothing but a printed photo that couldn’t _begin_ to capture her beauty. These fears evaporate in an instant as she reaches up to stroke his cheek with the back of her hand; her eyes are shining with joy and love and maybe a little bit of disbelief (he too is struggling to comprehend how this can be real when a few days ago he was sitting in a cell waiting to be murdered).

 

“ _So_ happy,” he concedes, pecking her lips once, twice. In a lighter, teasing tone, he adds, “Oh, you’re mine too, by the way.”

 

“I thought your ’soulmate was New York pizza’?” Amy quips, referencing his words during their first meal together a few nights ago after he was released.

 

He pretends to ponder it for a moment, stroking his chin while she laughs softly. He missed making her laugh like this - more than the pizza, more than this bed, more than almost anything.

 

“Nah, it’s definitely you.”

 

His features soften with affection as she smiles and nudges his chest to flip him over so she’s on top, her chest pressed against his as she kisses him and her fingers dart upward to run through his hair.

 

“I love you so much,” Jake mumbles against her lips as she kisses him with increasing intensity, just barely grinding against him - but still enough to make him hard, they’ve still got a lot of lost time to make up for.

 

Her hands skim his waistband and he smiles at her in anticipation, reaching for the hem of her shirt only to be brushed off as Amy hastily rolls off of him and leaps out of the bed, dragging the comforter along with her.

 

“Ha, gotcha!” she exclaims triumphantly, clearly drinking in his confused and disappointed expression as he recovers from his state of arousal and pouts at her. “Sorry, babe, I had to get you up somehow.”

 

“I can think of some less cruel ways, but it’s fine,” he sighs, reluctantly climbing out of the bed and getting to his feet, walking over to the closet to grab a hoodie. For a brief moment, definitely unnoticed by his watching girlfriend, his eyes flit to his sock drawer at the bottom of their dresser, the one she’s least likely to open and even less likely to rummage through long enough to find what’s buried in the back right corner. “I’ll get my revenge, just you wait.”

 

“How can you be so sure?” she asks with a hand on her hip, still watching him amusedly as he pulls a sweater on and turns back to face her.

 

He smirks to himself, picturing the look on her face as she reads the inscription on the belt that is currently being engraved at a shop in Bushwick. Later, as they eat breakfast in front of the episodes of Jeopardy she left on the DVR for his return, he’ll also take the time to picture her in a white dress at the end of a long aisle surrounded with their family and friends. He’ll call her dad and leave a voicemail, he’ll review his heist plans, he’ll even take the liberty of clearing their calendars for November first (he has a feeling he’ll be able to _keep_ her in bed that day).

 

For now, though, he just smiles.

 

“I’ve got a pretty good feeling.”


	15. even if the skies get rough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake and Amy talk at home post-6x12.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u can talk to me on tumblr if u have any questions about my views on this ep, but all in all i'm happy with the resolution and i think both jake and amy made very valid points
> 
> title from i won't give up by jason mraz <333

Amy has bad dreams, sometimes. She has since she was a child, paralyzing anxiety consuming her even in sleep before she was ten years old with dreams about sleeping in and missing a test or disappointing her parents. They progressed as she got older and she was exposed to the daily horrors of being a cop, as well as the _less typical_ traumatic experiences like her boyfriend going to prison and watching her friend get hit by a bus.

 

It’s not rare that she wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat after a nightmare, but tonight it’s unclear at first why her sleep has been disrupted. There were no night terrors that she can recall, nor is she in any immediate danger in the comfort of her own bedroom, but there’s a sharp pain in her chest screaming that something is wrong.

 

She turns to Jake, her eyes searching blindly for him in the dark, and after a few heavy blinks she’s able to make out that he’s still awake and staring at the ceiling.

 

“Babe,” she whispers before reaching out to grab his arm, not wanting to startle him. He still jumps slightly and relaxes a moment later, his head lolling to the side to face her and a soft smile that doesn’t reach his eyes gracing his face. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

 

Jake shrugs, his gaze briefly flicking away from her. When they return, there’s a soft, sad, almost desperate gleam in his eyes. With another pang in her chest so painful that it knocks the wind out of her, she recalls seeing this very look a few hours ago at the height of their argument.

 

Her subconscious seems to have figured it out before she did, not allowing her to sleep more than an hour or so, but it dawns on her pretty quickly that there’s more that needs to be said tonight. It’s not that what she said was untrue, necessarily. She _does_ want kids and she doesn’t have the luxury of waiting, but if her husband - her sweet, kind, adoring husband who understands her better than anybody and has been surrounded by failed marriages and felt abandoned his whole life - is looking at her like _this_ , she needs to say something immediately.

 

She shuffles a little closer to him and curls her hand around the back of his head, beginning to gently stroke his hair.

 

“I need you to know, Jake, what I said earlier about starting over, that was-”

 

“It’s okay,” he interrupts her, his hand reaching out to rest on her waist and stroke the exposed skin between her t-shirt and sweatpants. The soothing motion is accompanied by a reassuring smile; his attempts to quell her anxieties as soon as they appear are second nature at this point. “It’s really important to you to have kids. I get that. I just...”

 

He trails off and the sad expression is renewed, unshed tears glistening that she can tell he’s trying hard to repress.

 

“It’s just hard for me to think about losing you. For any reason, ever.”

 

Amy nods and squeezes his bicep, moving closer still so that their knees are brushing against each other.

 

“It’s not something I want to think about either. I mean, tonight, when you were in danger...” She reaches down to grab his hand for a burst of strength and comfort needed to finish her thought, letting out a soft exhale as he intertwines their fingers and squeezes tight. “I couldn’t handle the thought of losing you. You’re the love of my life, I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

 

She sees a glimpse of a soft smile before he’s leaning in to kiss her, his lips as warm and familiar as they always are when they meet hers.

 

“I love you.”

 

Amy sighs and cups his face, absently stroking his cheek. “I love you too. C’mere.”

 

She pulls him in closer and wraps both arms around his torso, her body relaxing as soon as he slides his arms around her and tugs her firmly to his chest.

 

“Are you sure about kids?” she asks, sliding her leg in the space between his. He shoots her a puzzled look - understandably, after she spent the majority of the day fighting for this very cause. “I just mean...I don’t want you to make that decision based on me sort of giving you an ultimatum like that. I want you to really want this too.”

 

He’s silent for a moment, his fingers combing through her hair, and for a minute she’s terrified that he’ll change his mind again. She loves him so, so deeply, but it would be nearly impossible for her to abandon the idea of having children after spending her entire life dreaming of having a family. She’s always wanted that future, and she’s grown to want it even more after meeting the person she wants to share it with.

 

(The _only_ person she wants to share it with.)

 

“I’m sure, Ames.”

 

She looks up at him with wide eyes and squeezes him a little tighter. “Really?”

 

“Like I said, I was scared. I _am_ scared, of, ya know, being a crappy dad and letting you and our kid down and turning into my father and all that fun ‘abandonment issues’ stuff.” He lets out a small, strangled laugh and she tries her best to smile warmly at him - she’s yet to find an easy way to talk to him about his childhood traumas. “It’s definitely terrifying. But it’s a lot less scary when I have you.”

 

Her heart swells with affection that can only be appeased by her leaning up and kissing him again, overwhelmed by the tumultuous emotions she’s experienced tonight and his unexpectedly sincere and touching sentiment.

 

“We do make a pretty good team.”

 

“We always have,” he grins.

 

She kisses his jaw and moves a little closer to his ear so she can whisper softly, for good measure: “Always will.”

 

He buries his face in her hair, his arm constricting even further around her as both of their eyes flutter shut now that they’ve put their minds and hearts at ease for the time being. She’s happy in her husband’s embrace, feeling his warmth wash over her as she finally relaxes.

 

“And just think of all the sex we’re gonna have when we start trying. Like, twenty-four-sevs, wild, unprotected boinking in our apartment, the car, maybe the supply closets on the fourth floor that nobody ever uses...”

 

She would chastise him for ruining the moment, but it’s so typical and, after the day she’s had, incredibly refreshing, that all she can do is laugh against his chest.

 

“You’re ridiculous.”

 

He’s still laughing along with her, but he takes a moment to tuck her hair behind her ear and cup her face with one hand.

 

“This is number one.”

 

She furrows her brows in confusion, leaning into his hand and reaching upward to hold it in place.

 

“We never finished our top five marriage moments,” he elaborates, still grinning. “This is my new number one. I can’t wait to start a family with you, Ames.”

 

Her vision quickly clouds with tears and Jake brushes them away with a swipe of his thumb over her cheek. His gaze growing concerned, she waves her hand to assure him that she’s fine.

 

“They’re happy tears, babe. This is my number one, too.” She smiles as he softens again, resuming his stroking of her hair. “Oh my god, I’m gonna cry so much when I’m pregnant. What if our baby inherits that? Babies _already_ cry so much.”

 

He laughs against her hair, laying a few more soft kisses to the crown of her head.

 

“I can’t wait.” It should be sarcastic, but she can’t detect even a hint of irony in his tone. “Let’s get some sleep. We can talk about everything more in the morning.”

 

She does have dreams later that night, but they’re entirely comprised of painting a nursery and watching Jake try to build an IKEA crib and holding an infant with his unruly curls. She dreams of the life ahead of her - a life with _him_.

**Author's Note:**

> don't hesitate to comment/talk to me on tumblr @peraltasames :)


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